How did nook and cranny come about?

The nook in nook and cranny means a small field or a small corner. It goes back to at least 1200.

Cranny was a small opening or hole. Together they mean lost.

To look for something in nook and cranny means to look everywhere for it. The Readers Digest Australian Thesaurus says it means a hideout.

The word nook started out as a square or angular thing (such as a piece of paper or cloth), then it developed as a fragment.

Then it meant a small field, then it developed as a small point of land, then it meant a corner of a house or other building, then it meant a corner inside a house, then it developed as an out-of-the-way corner, then it meant a place shut in by rocks or trees, then it meant an out-of-the-way secluded place, and finally a secluded part of the world.

Tennyson said: “in some old nooks like this”. Milton said: “her mansion in this freshly nook’’.

Nook has given us only a few more words, such as nook cantle, nook rib and nook window.

Collins says nook “ is a rather literary word”, It says “every nook and cranny brought back memories”.

Collins says crannies are small openings where fish hide.

It says “if you are talking about every nook and cranny you are talking about all the parts of it”.

Webster says nook is part of a “secluded retreat”. It says crannies are small openings or becoming penetrated by crannies or clefts”.

Macquarie says nook is any secluded or obscue corner. It describes cranny as a small narrow opening in a wall or rock.

Then we come to cranny.

Cranny has given us a chunk in metal, a small narrow hole, a crack, or fissure.

But it has also given us a few other words.

A cranny is a smooth neck in glass blowing. Or to open in chinks or to penetrate into crannies. Byron said “all tenantless, save to the crannying wind”.

lauriebarber.com;lbword@midcoast.com.au